Work Hard… Play Hard….

All Eyes on China 39

It’s our final week in Changzhou and we all have one thing on our minds…Deliver outcomes to create Social Impact for our Host Organization. We had added pressures of the entire Changzhou TV News crew watching our every move, recording our final presentations on the client’s sites, while listening to reactions as we presented our recommendations and findings.

Not to mention, we were presenting in English while our Project Assistants (PAs) worked overtime analyzing and deciphering our words to help our host organization listen in the Chinese language. We put 110% trust in our PAs to ensure the vital messages and recommendations were getting through…  

 

Our final day in Changzhou and closing presentations were ready for all of the city to see. We were informed that news crews and local government officials would be in the crowd.

I can safely say that China 39 delivered above expectations, check out these stats… 

–          an anticipated joint impact reaching over 58,000 people (indirectly);

–          An estimated 500 ppt slides of knowledge shared;

–          15,000 smiles from the community groups; and

–          1.7 Million photos with new lifelong friends.

Well done to our team as we say goodbye to our China home – Changzhou.

Work aside, let’s talk about a different type of social impact….

One thing I like about working hard is that you get to treat yourself to a few nights out on the town. One night stood out this week, we felt like we had the keys to the city… taking a  scenic tour of the canals pretending that we were the kings (and queens of the world quoting the titanic ) followed by a local bar with live music! I guarantee you will see the China 39 Team is full swing (see photo evidence), especially after ensuring all final presentations to the host organizations were complete.

 

Here’s a few shout outs to the team members have made their own personal ‘social impact’ over the last few weeks:

–          Sheree for showing us how to jam on that keyboard and make amazing team videos

–          Dens for his awesome dance moves in the backstreets of Changzhou with the local ladies

–          Sarah proving she’s here ‘just for work’.

–          Bruno for his young at heart attitude.

–          Tom for his ability to get tipsy from Coca Cola

–          Laura for being a ‘rebel’ from day 1

–          Melinda for showing us how to really dance

–          Edna for her love of hhwine and her emergency supplies

–          Kris for her Tuesday night Czech dice games

–          Jean for his big smile while showing his Brazilian dance moves

–          Joycelyn for ensuring we are well prepared on weekend adventures

–          Patis for eating other people’s meals (Laura’s dinner)

–          Stevo always making time to please us!

–          And a cheeky one for myself for being able to drink more Chinese wine then the Chinese. 

And all our Project Assistance – You are all amazing and we thank you for your hard work and friendship!

Changzhou you have been good to us…on so many levels!

Bonus Blog Zone – Check out these funny signs:

How to jump 3 levels of CSC-China-39-Game in less then 60 hours

Pre-requisites for accessing the game:
Level 1. Running 2 Design thinking sessions in Chinese in a week and drinking 3 bottles of Chinese white wine with your host organisation – Please note: feel free to choose the lighter white wine, only 43 of Alch % … There is no need to choose the stronger one.
Level 2. Going on your own to a ‘near-by’ city, feeding yourself and coming back – Please note: No PA are allowed to support you.
Level 3. Taking a pic in the hills without any other human – Please note: you can rent a bus and go to a Bamboo forest but in order to achieve this pre-requisite your feet must have been walked for 22 kms the day before.

How it will work based on our lived experience – powered by some CSC-China-39 Survivors:

Level 1. Running design thinking in Chinese is really challenging and funny at the same time – You would need to make sure your translators are well prepared as well the workshops’ s mission is clear to everybody and you will be ready to rock & rolla 🙂 The first session has been fun, the second one has been a real success, with a really good quality of content. That’s why we were able to properly celebrate with our host organisation on Friday night. Such a good time eating and drinking and laughing!

Lesson Learnt:

• A glass of Chinese wine is different from what you have in mind – It is LITERALLY a FULL glass of wine.
• For a chinese person Laura is “LALA” and Italy is “ITALIII”.
• Spaghetti are also named “Italian noodles” and chinese shrimp cakes are “ITALIAN MINI PIZZAs”

Level 2. We left after a ‘chilled-out’ breakfast and we discovered Wuxi on our own all the day long, walking all over the places and ending up in a wonderful park. The view from the Sunrise hill was incredible amazing – as well  as the lights effect.

Also our lunch has been the BEST EVER in LIFE – it took only 25 mins long to place the order (and only the patient Sarah could deal with it on our behalf) and we managed to order aprox 50 dumplings and a bowl of rice. Of course all the same dumplings (Pork only) and steamed rice, without salt. YES, we love dumplings (maybe not anymore now..). and YES we are hopeless without our beloved PA.

Lesson learnt:

• Don’t trust daily trips starting smoothly. If you want to reach the next level of China CSC Game, the fun will come later – Rehearse yourself, generally speaking be prepared to run.
• Say thanks in advance to your external Smartphone battery – I am sure you will need it.
• Underground service shut down at 22.01 – Make sure you would not get stucked in the middle of your journey. If this happens (guess why we know it …..) just JUMP OUT, go upstairs and FLY to the railway station with a Didi car.
• In Wuxi there are 2 railway stations – Murphy’s law will always win against your. Of course we went to the wrong one.
• Pink Dogs exist –  Evidences below.

Level 3. Sometimes having a proper transfer of 2 hours by bus is not that bad, especially when your feet and legs are kinda of ‘fried’ as the day before you walked for 21 km. So here we go, Sunday morning, it is almost 10 am and we are ready to climb and discover the bamboo forest. We have enjoyed our walk  and our brand new Chinese hats. Also for the first time in this month we could find more bamboo tree than people!!! Unfortunately we can not say the same about Pandas, as only spotted 2 and they looked like in a joyful hangover – Oh bless them!

 Lesson learnt: 

• Green Peas Ice-creams are not bad!
• Ground and Cabin Cable in China are used also without snow
• As my friend Sarah said – this is the EXTRA place, so do not be surprised if you will find music while hiking 🙂 …..It’s China and we are loving it!

7 Days left in Changzhou

你好 Nǐ hǎo Hello everybody, My name is Patis from Bangkok, Thailand. It’s a great honour to be a part of this team CSC China 39…

I’m in team with Kristýna from Czech Republic and Bruno from France. I’m very very enjoy to spent time every working day with them. I also learnt many things from them. Our team work with Changzhou Volunteer Federation (CVF) which is a first volunteers organization in Changzhou. We try to help to them by provide recommendation for 2 programs by using data analytics. First program, we tried to find solution to help their activity to be more attractive. Second programs is about to motivate people to use the application and find which information on donators is needed to extend to additional activities ?

We have 2 project assistants. Janice and Tristan. They are very kind and help us everything especially translations. If you read this blog, I just want to say “谢谢 Xièxiè” to both of you. I hope you guys have learnt a lot from us. There are nothing to worry as long as you do the best (I talk to my self as well). I cannot imagine  how can we work without them. Thanks again…

This city, Changzhou. It’s very beautiful city. It doesn’t has metro. But it doesn’t a problem. Because it’s very convenience and very cheap to travel by bus. It just only ¥1 (Yuan). Traffic is so good, unlike my hometown (Bangkok). However, I think using DiDi application is still the best way to travel in the city as a group. Because it confirm that we will never get lost (if we can speak chinese) and fix price.

Everyday is so fast, we worked very hard everyday (except on weekend ^_^). We started work by tried to understand their process, what kind of data that they keep in database, tried to understand their painpoints and find solution to solve their problems. We also conducted Design Thinking Workshop. For this workshop, I have a special thanks goes to Laura from Italy. She helped us prepared workshop by rehearsed all sections. I gained many techniques from her to deal with difference clients.

Unbelievable!, we have only 7 days left in this city. Today, we have final presentation with our client. The plan is present our recommendation to help them improve their 2 programs. The result is very good. Our client likes it!. So, we confident to continue work on next week which is a last week. We need to conclude and deliver our work products. I hope that we will have time one day to visit Dinorsaur Park :-).

Also in this weekend, we have plan to go to Wuxi. It’s not far from here. We will go by train. I’m very excite, can’t wait for tomorrow!

Chinese National Park

We had the opportunity to explore an amazing Chinese National park by the name of Zhongshan Mountain National Park its a beautiful park with many lakes and places to see and visit. One of the highlights of the day was taking a stroll up to Zixia lake after lots of walking and climbing endless staircases. This place was so beautiful and tranquil especially because it was closer to the end of the day so most of the crowds had headed home for the day. It was by far my favorite place in the whole park. We sat and talked to some of the locals that were swimming around enjoying the fresh clean spring water it was just my ideal end to a long day of walking. When we turned in for the day we had walked about 11 miles and climbed 70 flights of stairs according to the fitness tracker on my phone.

I am enjoying the CSC experience so much. I really am so thankful for all the hard work put in by the project assistants as well. We would not be successful in serving our clients without them and we would especially not be able to have wonderful weekend outings like this one without their local knowledge and assistance.

By the edge of Zixia Lake:

The many stairs up to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum:

Lost in Translation

Nǐ hǎo (你好)! Bonjour! Kamusta! Swasdi! Ola! Ahoj! Ciao! Good day mates! Hello! WOW, my CSC China 39 team members are literally from all over the world. It is so hard to believe it has been over half a month since I have been here in Changzhou, China and I took the bus, so I’m totally a local now.  The clock is ticking and there is so much to do… Ahhhh!

My Chinese name is Zhen Juan. I have been working with my subteam Li Ming (Jean from Brazil) and Sue Na (Sarah from UK) to optimize the service model for an elderly care service. Remember that law in China where families could only have 1 child? Well that ended up being a problem because if a family lost their child there would be no one to take care of them. Our team is here to help the organization optimize and standardize their business model so that it can be replicated across China. It is very important making sure our questions and answers are translated correctly. One day I went to the toilet and when I came back, a whole new department within the org was discovered! How long was I on the toilet (thankfully not the squat model…it’s the small things)? Geez.

The funniest thing is when we venture out to tour the city and the locals randomly stand beside me to snap a picture or just stare. It is not uncommon to get a tug at the arm to commence the mobile photo shoot. I need to start charging Yuans for these pics to go towards my Squirrelfish fund (an awesome dish in China)!

China is the WeChat (an app) capital of the world. You can do anything with it *turns off phone*! My colleagues ordered a cab for my Brazilian Project Manager (BPM) and myself to meet them at “A Church” in the city. The taxi driver arrived with a random lady in the front seat. My Chinese is not too good, but I thought if I gave her a long stare, she would understand that I meant “we need your seat too,” but I guess the telepathic vibes were somehow disrupted. Only two of us get in the cab and off we go. About 5 hours later (really 30 mins or so but seemed like an eternity), we ended up in a dark, dusty alley. Where is this infamous church? Is this a joke? Are we still in Changzhou? What address did he get? So many thoughts rushed through my mind. Suddenly the driver and I played a nice game of Pictionary and sign language…we both lost! GAME OVER! I pick up my phone and contacted my translator for help and after a few blocks past Gucci, my BPM and I rerouted to Hungmei Park.

Moments later, my Hungarian colleague was walking beside me and said to me, “Am I white?” ….Ahhhh…What kind of question is that? Is this another trick? How do I answer that? Ok, I guess I’ll be honest. “Ohmmm….yes?” As she sensed the confusion on my face she quickly realized that her phrasing was misleading. She really wanted to know if she had rubbed in all of the white sunblock on her face. Oops! And yesterday my translators were debating each other on how to say PORK MEAT in Chinese…talk about Lost in Translation! Check out my video!